14. Galahad
Galahad
“Pack your things.” I shoved the suite door closed and crossed to the sitting area to grab my bag. “We leave in fifteen minutes.”
“No, wait.” Grace stood near the entryway, her face pale despite our half-run back to the hotel. “What did he say to you? What happened?”
“Later.” I pulled open the closet, yanking clothes from hangers without folding them. “Pack first.”
“But—”
“Grace.” I stopped, turned, and made myself stand still long enough to look at her.
The fear in her eyes lodged deep in my chest, but I shoved it down.
Fear was appropriate, and I had let her sit in that.
Fear would make her listen to me and keep her in one piece.
“I need you to trust me right now. Can you do that?”
She hesitated, blinking rapidly, then nodded.
“Good. Now pack. Fast.”
She moved toward the bedroom and pulled her suitcase onto the bed.
I forced my attention to my own packing. Clothes, toiletries, and I’d grab the egg last, right before we walked out. “Tell me everything. From the moment you left the hotel.”
“I…” She opened a drawer and started pulling out clothes. “I was standing at the window, and I just... I wanted to see something. Anything. You were going to be gone for two hours, and the whole city was right there, and I thought?—”
“Where did you go?”
“The Gherkin. The tall pickle-shaped building? It’s close. I used the map on my phone, and it was only a ten-minute walk, and I figured I’d go and come back, and, well… We were going to the Tower of London when you got back anyway, so I thought…” She was spiraling. Maybe too much fear.
“Grace.” I leaned back to look around the partial wall at her. “Focus. What happened after you left?”
“Right. Sorry.” She shoved a shirt into her suitcase.
“I walked toward it. The streets were busy, lots of people. I was admiring the buildings, taking it in, and when I got to the Gherkin, I took a selfie, and I noticed…” She paused.
“I saw him a couple of times. The man. I kept telling myself it was a coincidence because I didn’t see his face, but he was always there. ”
“How many times?”
“Three? Four? He was behind me when I left the market, and?—”
“Back up and tell me every time you saw him. Start from the first.”
She stopped packing, her hands stilling on a sweater she’d been stuffing into a corner of her suitcase. “The first time was when he bumped into me.”
My whole body went still. “He bumped into you?”
“Near the beginning. Right after I left the hotel. He came from the other direction and hit my shoulder. Didn’t even apologize, just kept walking.” She touched her right shoulder. “I thought he was just rude.”
“Which side was your purse on?”
Her hand moved to her right hip, where her crossbody bag hung. “Right side. Why?”
I was across the room before she finished the question. “Give me your bag.”
“What?”
“Your purse. Now.”
She unlooped the strap and handed it over.
Fuck. It wasn’t even zipped closed. I upended the contents onto the bed—wallet, phone, tissues, a compact mirror, loose change, and so much stuff. “Is anything missing?”
“I don’t—” She stared at the pile, brows furrowing. “I don’t think so?”
“Check. Carefully.”
She picked through the items, sorting through everything. She paused. Looked again. Moved a few things aside.
“My lip balm.”
“Lip balm? Are you sure?”
“It’s—” She made a shape with her hands. Round. “It’s pink. About this big. Kinda egg-shaped.”
“Fuck.” Egg-shaped. Roughly the right size. I dropped the empty purse onto the bed. “He was checking if you had it on you.”
“Had what? The—” Her eyes went wide. “The egg? You think he was trying to find the egg in my purse?”
“He knew it was small enough to carry.” I moved to the safe and punched in the code. “You’d left the hotel without me, which meant you might have it with you. He bumped you, swept a hand through your bag, felt something egg-shaped, palmed it. Probably realized his mistake as soon as he got clear.”
“That’s why he kept following me.” Grace’s words came out slowly as the truth dawned on her. “He thought I might still have it, so…”
The safe clicked open. The velvet bag sat inside, untouched. I pulled it out, checked its contents, then secured it in the travel pack strapped across my chest.
“Garrett.” She stood in the middle of the bedroom now, arms wrapped around herself. “What is going on?”
“He said his employer wants to make an offer on the egg.”
“An offer? That sounds?—”
“Civilized?” I grabbed my toiletries from the bathroom. “Yeah. That’s how he said it. Very polite.” I tossed my toothbrush into my bag and raised my voice enough for her to hear me. “I told him if you wanted to sell, it would go to auction, and his employer could bid like everyone else.”
“And?”
“And he said his employer is rather insistent about being the one who ends up with it.” I exited the bathroom and stopped in front of her to make the situation as clear as possible. “And he told me he loves it when people choose the hard way.”
All the color left in her face drained from it.
“That’s why we’re leaving. They know the hotel.
If he suspects you didn’t have the egg on you, he’ll guess it’s here.
Staying means waiting for him, and whoever else his boss sends, to make a move on their timeline.
” I tossed my toiletry bag into my duffel and zipped it closed.
“Leaving means I decide when and where.”
She stood frozen, another shirt clutched in her hands. “So what do we do? Abandon the trip? Go home?”
“We go somewhere they’re not expecting. Regroup. Figure out our next move.”
“Where?”
“Paris. The French archaeologist we talked to on the plane lives just outside of the city.”
“Paris.” She let out a short laugh. “We’re fleeing to Paris.”
“Would you prefer we stay here and wait for them to come back with more than one guy?”
“No, I just—” She shook her head, turning back to her suitcase. “This is unbelievable. This morning I was researching Tower of London tours, and now I’m running from international art thieves like I’m in some action-adventure movie.”
“It’s not a movie.” I moved to the window, checking the street below. Foot traffic appeared normal. No one lingering, no vehicles idling. “In movies, the hero always shows up in time. In real life, sometimes the bad guys get there first.”
“And you think they’re going to do what? Break down the door?”
“I think people have done worse for objects worth less. Your egg is worth at least twenty million dollars. You’d be surprised how many people would kill for that.”
“I thought you were exaggerating.” She was quiet for a moment, then her chin lifted, and an almost foreign edge transformed her voice.
“I didn’t ask for any of this. I didn’t ask to find the egg, I didn’t ask to be followed, and I didn’t ask to be locked in hotel rooms and ordered around by someone who treats me like I can’t be trusted to walk down the street. ”
“You couldn’t be trusted.” I snatched her charger from the bedside table and tossed it into her bag. “You went out alone—against my explicit instructions—and nearly got grabbed.”
“I was fine. Nothing happened.”
“Because I got to you in time.”
“Maybe nothing would have happened anyway!” Her voice rose, in both volume and pitch. “Maybe he really wanted to talk, like he said?—”
“And if you were close enough to talk, you were close enough for him to put a hand over your mouth and shove you into a car.” My voice came out harsher than I intended, but we didn’t have the time for me to fix it. “Is that what you want? To find out what his employer’s hard way looks like?”
Her jaw tightened. “You don’t know what would have happened.”
“You’re right, I don’t know. But my job is to understand how these people operate and keep you safe.”
“Right. Because you’re the expert, and I’m just the idiot who wandered off.”
“I didn’t say?—”
“You didn’t have to.” She zipped her suitcase with a sharp motion. “Every time I make a decision, you treat me like I’m too stupid to comprehend the danger. Like I’m some naive little girl who thinks everything will just work out.”
“That’s not?—”
“I know things don’t always work out, Garrett.” Her voice cracked on the last word, and she turned away, fussing with the suitcase handle. “But I refuse to spend my life assuming the worst. That’s not living. That’s just passing time until we die.”
The words went straight into my heart and cracked open a memory. My mother’s voice echoed in my head, clear as if she were standing beside me. ‘He didn’t mean it, Garrett. It’ll be fine. Things will get better.’
She’d said that every time. Every single fucking time. Even when her eye was swelling shut. Even when she couldn’t lift her arm. Even when she found her hidden money was gone and had to start saving all over again.
‘It’ll be fine.’
It wasn’t fine. It was never fine. And all her hoping, all her believing things would get better—it didn’t protect her. It just kept her in place long enough for the next hit.
Grace’s head fell, and she muttered quietly, “I didn’t pack my toiletry bag. I’ll be right back.”
I could hear the sniffle from my spot next to her bed.
Grace wasn’t my mother. I knew that. She wasn’t staying with someone who hurt her, wasn’t making excuses for violence.
She wasn’t trapped. But she’d had the same look.
The stubborn faith things would work out if she believed hard enough.
I unzippered the bag for her, focusing on the sound of her bottles and containers clinking together as she collected them.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she rejoined me. “You’re doing a favor for Tristan. You said it yourself: five days and you’re gone. You’re not even getting paid for this, and I’m making your job harder.”
My hand inched closer to her, like it wanted to fucking hug her. She was so small after being so smart at the pub, then so defiant in leaving. But that didn’t matter. Safety came first. Comfort only came after safety. “Are you ready?”
She tossed a black bag, a clear one with her shower stuff, and a hairbrush into her suitcase. “Yes.”
“Then let’s go.” I grabbed her suitcase and headed for the door as she stuffed everything back into her purse. At the door, I paused. Checked the peephole. Listened. I had calls to make, but not until we were settled. Then, I’d get the team on this.
She took position behind me.
“Clear,” I said out of habit, more than anything, and stepped out with Grace close behind me.